Nov 14, 2023
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too tired to articulate it well, but the college board & ETS (they make the SAT) is so insidious.
they made up a standard, and then turned around and put a price tag on reaching it. disgusting.
A CHANGE IN EMPHASIS? PART I
[Note: If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings. The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html). Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.]
With this posting, this blog reviews the content of those standards that the Center for Civic Education developed to guide the question-development process of its national testing program. This writer wants to contextualize what follows and make an observation. When one looks at the officialdom of social studies at the national level one sees an observable change going on.
Of recent vintage, the federal government’s Department of Education efforts has included a joint project with the professional organization of social studies educators, the National Council for the Social Studies. That project has issued a set of national standards for civics. Through that effort, one can sense that a change of direction might be in the works – hopefully, the C3 Framework,[1] what its resulting standards can be called, indicates a move away from a natural rights stance to one that engages in a more normative approach. Time will tell.
But as to the efforts that leadership has taken up to this point – those efforts that have influenced the general approach instruction has implemented – one can look at two concrete products. They are the textbooks that school districts have distributed to teachers and the national standards that have been used to evaluate the state of civics education. This posting starts with the standards.
To begin, one can look at the Educational Testing Service standards that were published in 2003. Below is a sample of these standards as well as those of 2014 and they are followed by how this writer evaluates them, i.e., he reports on a growing awareness of how un-communal civics instruction had become. This posting looks at the former standards and the next posting will highlight the 2014 standards.
As one reads the following excerpt, one should observe the tenor and priority the writers of that document express. This review chooses from 2003 standards those items regarding rights and responsibilities of citizens:
Content summary and rationale
One of the primary purposes of American government is the protection of personal, political, and economic rights of individuals. It is essential, therefore, for citizens to understand what these rights are and why they are important to themselves and their society.
Few, if any, rights can be considered absolute. Most rights may be limited when they conflict with other important rights, values, and interests. An understanding of both the importance of rights and the need for reasonable limitations upon them provides a basis for reasoned discussion of issues regarding them.
1. Rights of individuals. Students should be able to explain why certain rights are important to the individual and to a democratic society.
To achieve this standard, students should be able to
· identify the following types of rights and explain their importance
· personal rights, e.g., to associate with whomever one pleases, live where one chooses, practice the religion of one's choice, travel freely and return to the United States, emigrate
· political rights, e.g., to vote, speak freely and criticize the government, join organizations that try to influence government policies, join a political party, seek and hold public office
· economic rights, e.g., to own property, choose one's work, change employment, join a labor union, establish a business
· identify contemporary issues regarding rights, e.g., school prayer, employment, welfare, equal pay for equal work ...
Content summary and rationale
An understanding of the importance of individual rights must be accompanied by an examination of personal and civic responsibilities. For American democracy to flourish, citizens must not only be aware of their rights, they must also exercise them responsibly and they must fulfill those responsibilities necessary to a self-governing, free, and just society.
2. Responsibilities of individuals. Students should be able to explain why certain responsibilities are important to themselves and their family, community, state and nation.
To achieve this standard, students should be able to identify such responsibilities as the following and explain their importance
· personal responsibilities, e.g., taking care of themselves, accepting responsibility for the consequences of their actions, taking advantage of the opportunity to be educated, supporting their families
· civic responsibilities, e.g., obeying the law, respecting the rights of others, being informed and attentive to the needs of their community, paying attention to how well their elected leaders are doing their jobs communicating with their representatives in their school, local, state, and national governments, voting, paying taxes, serving on juries, serving in the armed forces[2]
Admittedly, what follows is the writer’s interpretation; see if the reader agrees.
First, there is seemingly little to disagree with here. A close reading, though, reveals a bias. In terms of the thrust of these standards’ language, while guardedly adding language concerning communal conditions almost as an afterthought, the standards favor individual liberty. Students are encouraged to pursue individual choices. This is in line with traditional liberal thought as has been described in this blog.
While there is a reference to certain values, they are mostly procedural ones such as participating in the political process, but only minimally. How does the language pursue communal interests? Honestly, does the above language encourage community or is it a language reflecting a systems approach with a structural and functional perspective? As the reader might guess, this writer sees the language as promoting individualism.
Does it harken to a view of government as being of and by its citizens or does it paint a picture segregating the citizenry from its government? The claim here is that the language communicates a separation and, while there is a concern for civic responsibilities, the emphasis is on individual liberal rights in that that standard is highlighted first and has more substance. The next posting will pursue this investigation into the next set of standards the Center for Civic Education issued in 2014.
[1] To see the product of that effort see National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) (Washington, D. C.: NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3 . To see this writer’s critique of that effort, see Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation: Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL: Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020) particularly Chapter 1, “C3 Framework of Standards.’’
[2] Center for Civic Education, National Standards for Civics and Government (Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 2003), 35-36.
Students to take global exams TOEFL, GRE at home due to coronavirus pandemic - Times of India
New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/students-to-take-global-exams-toefl-gre-at-home-due-to-coronavirus-pandemic-times-of-india/
Students to take global exams TOEFL, GRE at home due to coronavirus pandemic - Times of India
NEW DELHI: Global exams like TOEFL and GRE will be taken at home except in mainland China and Iran in view of the COVID-19 situation across the globe, according to the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The tests had been suspended across the globe following coronavirus outbreak.
“At-home solutions will now be worldwide for test takers who have been affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Both TOEFL and GRE will be taken at home till the situation is conducive for tests to be conducted at centres,” Srikant Gopal, Executive Director of the TOEFL Program, told .
“Precautions are being taken to ensure that the tests students will take from home meet the highest standards for validity, reliability and security. These tests employ multiple best-in-class security measures that use both real-time human monitoring and artificial intelligence technology,” he added.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), are crucial exams for admissions in top universities across the globe.
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